


L'heure Dorée (The Golden Hour)

by Lepak



Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Everyone's an Art Cop, Fluff, Gen, Just Two Colleagues on a Gallery Date, Let Jean Have Something Nice, M/M, Post-Canon, References to past canonical relationships, With Their Kid, please god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27382336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lepak/pseuds/Lepak
Summary: It’s three months after Martinaise, two after Lt. 2YF Du Bois’s return, and one after the inadvisable kiss at Lt. Kitsuragi’s birthday karaoke that Trant places three tickets on Jean’s desk and asks if they can spend their day-off together.“You mean with you and Mik?” Jean says, looking up from his mountain of case files. The circles under his eyes are not getting any lighter.“There’s a special exhibition I’d like to show him,” Trant says, smiling brightly. “And you.”Jean’s chair creaks as he sits back in it. “It’s not the kind of art where a naked guy rolls in shit and screams at you, right? We already have Harry.”
Relationships: Trant Heidelstam/Jean Vicquemare
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luminality](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminality/gifts).



It’s three months after Martinaise, two after Lt. 2YF Du Bois’s return, and one after the inadvisable kiss at Lt. Kitsuragi’s birthday karaoke that Trant places three tickets on Jean’s desk and asks if they can spend their day-off together.

“You mean with you and Mik?” Jean says, looking up from his mountain of case files. The circles under his eyes are not getting any lighter.

“There’s a special exhibition I’d like to show him,” Trant says, smiling brightly. “And you.”

Jean’s chair creaks as he sits back in it. “It’s not the kind of art where a naked guy rolls in shit and screams at you, right? We already have Harry.”

“Definitely not. It’s called ‘Revolution and Reconstruction: Protest Photography at the Dawn of the Revacholian Century.’ It should be fun.”

“Practically a fair,” Jean says skeptically. “With toffee apples, a pleasure wheel, and a shooting booth with real bullets.”

Not for the first time, Trant is reminded that he has a skewed definition of ‘fun’. “Maybe I should've said it'll be eye-opening. The museum's organised guided tours on the hour too.”

Jean snorts. “Won’t need one with you around.” He reaches for his diary. “I’ll meet you there. What time?”

\---

Trant and Mikael turn up at the museum half an hour late, after having turned the house upside-down trying to find Mikael’s lucky würm backpack. Jean’s sitting at the top of the entrance steps, nursing a flask of coffee, the building behind him rearing like a sea fortress. He stands as Trant jogs up.

“So sorry,” Trant puffs, crouching to let his son hop off his shoulders. “Thanks for waiting.”

“No problem,” Jean says, as Trant’s eyes sweep over his body, taking in what he’s wearing. “I don’t know what people wear to art museums. Don’t say a word.”

Trant is about to say that Jean looks good, but then he spots a security guard in the exact same black suit, down to the black tie and shiny shoes. He looks down at his son instead, now hiding behind his legs. “Say hello to Jean, Mikael.”

“H’lo,” Mikael whispers, blonde head peeking out behind Trant’s slacks.

Jean squats, now eye level with him. “Hey, kidlet. Cool folder.”

Mikael peeks out a little more, blue eyes round as marbles.

“Can I see it?” Jean says.

Mikael holds up the black plastic folder, ‘RCM’ printed on it in white letters.

“I couldn’t find his backpack this morning,” Trant explains. “So I gave him that to hold his sticker collection.”

“Ooh, stickers. I love stickers.” Jean smiles at Mikael.

The boy steps out from behind his father’s legs and shyly offers the folder to Jean.

“Can I see your stickers?” Jean asks, and waits for Mikael to nod before taking the folder and slipping out his sticker book. He flips through its pages. “Which one’s the best?”

“They’re all the best,” Mikael says, and he takes the book from Jean and turns to the second-last page. “But this one’s the best-best.”

Jean whistles and nods appreciatively. “Is that a real spider?”

“Yes,” Mikael says. “Daddy hit it.”

“On accident,” Trant says, placing a hand on his son's shoulder.

Mikael looks up at him. “No. You said a bad word and then hit it.”

“That was pretty silly of daddy, huh?” Jean winks at Trant.

“Yes.” Mikael nods solemnly, like a little priest. “Very silly.”

Jean gently touches the squashed spider and crosses himself, drawing three fingers from shoulder to shoulder. “After life, death. After death, life again.”

Mikael giggles. Trant looks at Jean, crouched on the steps in his funereal suit, normally stern expression softened by a smile, dry as sherry, and he feels his heart beat a little faster.

\---

They’re in the queue for the exhibition, tickets in hand, when a commotion breaks out ahead of them.

“I’m sorry,” the ticket inspector says at the front of the queue. With his excess of jowl and absence of chin, he resembles a turtle with a pencil moustache. “I can’t admit you. These tickets are invalid.” 

The old man he’s talking to wrings his spotted hands. “My wife bought the tickets yesterday, sir.”

“She bought tickets for _yesterday’s date_.” He shoots a glare at the old woman standing next to her husband. She cringes, clutching her worn skirt.

Trant glances at Jean. He’s watching the scene and scowling.

“Can we exchange them?” the old man says.

“Tickets are non-refundable.”

“I know, sir. But can we exchange them?”

“They are _non-refundable_ ,” the inspector hisses, “no exchanges.”

“I know, sir.” A plea trembles in his voice. “But some of our family’s in those photos. We walked a long way to see them.”

The inspector rolls his eyes. “You will have to buy a ticket for _today’s_ date and get in the queue.”

“We—” The old man swallows, humiliated. “We can’t afford it, sir.”

“That is no concern of mine.” The inspector tears the tickets in two and throws them to the floor. “We’re a museum, not a poorhouse.”

His voice rings through the concourse, followed by a hushed silence. The old man bows his head, weighed down by dozens of stares, and he stoops to pick up the pieces.

Jean steps forward, fists balled, thunderous, and Trant grabs him.

“What—” Jean growls.

Trant shakes his head and motions his chin towards Mikael, staring wide-eyed at the old man kneeling on the floor. He lets go of Jean’s arm and slips out of the queue, walking past the line of well-dressed gawkers to the old woman, still standing behind her husband, her eyes trained at her feet.

He clears his throat. “Excuse me, Madam.”

She turns around, blinking away tears. He holds out his tickets.

“I was supposed to attend the exhibition with a friend, but I’ve just heard he’s taken ill. Stomach flu.” He smiles at her in what he hopes is a comforting manner. “It would be a shame if they went to waste.”

“ _No exchanges_ ,” the ticket inspector snaps.

Trant shoots him a sunny smile. “That only applies to tickets issued by the ticketing office, and there are no rules which prohibit transferral of ownership. I should know.” He stares the chinless inspector dead in the eye. “I vetted them.”

He pushes the tickets into the old woman’s hands and helps her husband to his feet. Then he watches until the inspector has clipped the tickets and let them through the gate.

“Thank you!” the couple calls out to him, arms looped around each other.

“Enjoy the exhibition!” he says, waving.

The inspector sullenly motions the next person forward.

Trant returns to Jean and Mikael, ignoring the stares and whispers that follow him. “Come on,” he says, as Mikael reaches up to hold his hand. “Let’s go look at the permanent collection.”

\---

They wander through the galleries. Compared to the heaving queue in the concourse, these rooms are practically empty, populated only by bored security guards and the occasional sketcher. Trant gives a running commentary on the paintings, explaining iconography, providing historical and political context, and even dipping into philosophy—cut into child-friendly pieces. Jean drifts alongside them, occasionally peeling off to go look at something on his own. He’s quiet, and Trant almost thinks that Jean has tuned him out when he’ll pipe up with a question or some flash of insight to show, yes, he _has_ been listening, and listening closely. Which must have been a skill he cultivated during his partnership with Harry.

Jean doesn’t talk about those years much. He especially doesn’t talk about last winter and the destruction Harry wrought during what, at the time, seemed to be his final and terminal descent. It affected the whole unit of course—that’s why most of them left—but it hurt Jean most of all. And what came after in Martinaise was worse. But as he watches Jean lean towards a painting, or squat down to listen to Mikael’s own explanation of things, Trant resolves not to pry. Jean will speak when he’s ready. What’s important now is showing him he can look beyond survival.

“One thing I don’t get,” Jean says while they’re in the galleries devoted to the New Graadian School, “is the building.”

“How do you mean?” Trant says.

Jean gestures at the room, all exposed concrete and granite flooring. “I don’t remember art museums being like this. Where are all the fiddly bits in the ceiling? The ugly gold frames? The rich bast—rich man wallpaper? It feels like we’re walking around a warehouse.”

“Ah, that’s because this museum was designed by Ansel Hong-Suzuki, a Critical Material-Spatialist post-Revolution.”

“Did he hate every colour except grey and a slightly-lighter-grey?”

“He made the building simple,” Mikael chimes in, “so people can look at paintings better.”

Trant grins and ruffles his son’s hair. “Well said, bear cub.”

“Do you think that’s true?” Jean says, squatting down.

Mikael scrunches his nose, thinking. “Only for adults. Daddy has to carry me to see the paintings up high.”

“Is there anything you’d like to see here?” Trant asks.

Mikael shakes his head, then looks up at his father. “Can we go to the dog room?”

“What’s the dog room?” Jean says.

Mikael’s eyes go wide again. “You don’t know the dog room? It has so many dogs. Millions. Bazillions!” He takes Jean’s hand and starts tugging him forward. “I’ll show you.”

\---

Jean whistles, slowly turning in the centre of the room. The walls are covered in hundreds of paintings of dogs, from Seolite teacup poodles spilling out of soup tureens, to the cow-like _roussin_ carrying a lamb in its jaws. There’s even a life-sized diorama of a wolf pack leaping through the air, hanging on wires from the ceiling.

“You weren’t kidding, kidlet. This is bazillions.”

Mikael beams, his smile as wide and white as his father’s.

\---

Late in the afternoon, they stop in front of a large canvas that takes up nearly the entire gallery wall. It's a gauzy mess of paint strokes, muddy brown and grey at the bottom corners and gradually lightening to the top.

“What's this one?” Jean says.

“Sant-Clare's ‘Garden at Dawn’,” Trant says. “She did several studies of her garden at different times of day, and this is the largest of them.”

“Doesn't look like much of a garden.”

“It's all down to perspective. We're too close, so all we see are the individual brush strokes.” Trant shifts a sleeping Mikael, now drooling a spreading puddle onto the shoulder of his shirt. He motions his head towards a bench placed in the middle of the gallery, several meters away. “Let's sit over there.”

They do, Trant carefully lowering himself so he doesn't jostle his son. Jean looks up at the painting. He contemplates it for several silent seconds, then points.

“Those are lilies,” he says.

“Yes, they're a major motif in Sant-Clare's work. They symbolise the impermanence of life—and the beauty in that,” Trant says.

Jean lowers his arm. “And that's a stream, running under a bridge. With duckweed.”

“The bridge is likely ornamental. Sant-Clare's garden is actually much smaller than this painting suggests—I had the good luck of being able to visit it several years ago on the outskirts of Sur-la-Clef.”

Jean nods, eyes still glued to the painting. They’re alone. Trant admires the minimalism of the white frame against the concrete walls, as if they’re looking out of a window onto the garden. He can almost hear the stream babbling.

“Still,” he says, “it's lovely.”

“It's beautiful,” Jean says slowly. “How did she get those reflections in the water?”

“That I don't know,” Trant admits, smiling. “Artistic genius and turpentine. You know, there's a theory among art historians that Sant-Clare was going blind while she was doing her garden studies. They studied the change in her colour palette. While her earlier work has these vivid blues and purples, her later work is mostly browns and greys, which is a change that’s consistent with having cataracts. But I think that's what makes this painting so compelling—her mastery of light and shadow is unparalleled.”

Jean leans back on his hands. “Maybe that's why this piece is so big. She wanted to see everything and put it on canvas. Before she couldn't.”

Trant blinks. “That’s never occurred to me.” He turns back to the painting, taking it in. As if for the first time.

“She must've really loved this place,” Jean says.

Mikael snores. Trant strokes his golden head. “Yes. She must have.”

\---

Jean insists on paying for coffee and cake, and Mikael wakes up the second the plates hit the table, asking to try. Trant gives him half of his _tarte aux pommes_ , and when he comes back from the men’s room, Jean is hastily wiping chocolate from Mikael’s chin. His plate is suspiciously clean.

“We should get something for Mummy,” Mikael declares when he sees his father returning.

Trant decides not to comment on how his colleague has allowed his son to lick plates in public. “That’s a good idea,” he says, and ushers them all towards the gift shop.

“What would Mummy like?” Trant says, turning a rack of enamel key rings designed by an art collective from Faubourg. They swing gently on their metal hooks.

Mikael frowns at a case of museum-branded fountain pens. “A cool bug?”

“She would like that,” Trant smiles down at his son. “She could show it off to her colleagues in the entomology department.”

“Let’s find a cool bug for Mummy,” Mikael says, and sets off down the aisles, on the hunt. Trant follows, and spots Jean leafing through the postcards.

“Anything catch your eye?” Trant says, walking up to him and keeping Mikael in his line of sight.

Jean sets down a pack and reaches for another. “Not yet. I’m trying to find a postcard of that Sant-Clare.”

“They should have it. She’s a very popular artist.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen her earlier work—the colourful stuff. But nothing from her garden.”

Trant watches Mikael ask a shop assistant about their cool bug selection. “Would you like me to check?”

“It’s fine, I already have. Just thought I’d take a look myself.” He cradles the stack of cards, fingertips brushing their sharp corners. “Trant," he rasps, "I wanted to s—”

A voluminous woman in an orange and yellow kaftan taps his shoulder. “Excuse me, Mister security guard. There’s an unattended child by the art books.”

“The child is mine,” Trant says, smiling. 

The woman huffs. “Well, he should still do his job and not paw through the merchandise. What if he dirties it for paying patrons?”

“I don’t work here,” Jean snaps. “But maybe you should have some respect for the people who put up with your _bullshit_.” He turns back towards the cards and furiously flips through them.

“ _Well_ ,” the woman huffs again and flounces away.

“This is why I don’t go to art museums,” Jean mutters.

Trant pats his arm. “Never mind her. What were you about to say?”

“It’s fine.” Jean scowls, a furrow deepening between his heavy brows.

“You wanted—”

“Nothing. It’s fine.” His fingers stop and he pulls out a postcard, the storm on his face dissipating. “How’s this for cool bug?” He shows Trant a portrait of a bulldog in a ladybird costume. “Looks like McCoy.”

“McCoy on a good day,” Trant says, and he grins when Jean laughs. “Let’s ask Mikael what he thinks.”

\---

“Today was nice,” Jean says, as they walk away from the museum. The setting sun slants through the leafy canopy above them, dappling the pavement in gold and shadow.

“I’m glad,” Trant says. He looks up at his son, riding on his shoulders. “Did you have fun today?”

“Yes!” Mikael squeals, raising his folder in the air. The bulldog postcard shifts within it. “Can we mail Mummy her gift now?”

“All the post offices are closed, but we’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning. Where would you like to go for dinner?” Trant glances at Jean, strolling next to him with his hands in his pockets. “And would you like to join us?”

They stop at the pedestrian crossing. Jean kicks a pebble onto the black and yellow stripes painted on the road. “I’ve some work to clear. For the bakery mur—the bakery case.”

Trant tries not to look too disappointed. Mikael doesn’t try at all.

“Can Jean join us next week, Daddy?” he asks.

Trant squeezes his son’s ankles. “Sure, if he would like to.” He looks at Jean out of the corners of his eyes and smiles. “He’s always welcome to.”

Jean just looks back at him, saying nothing, and Trant’s palms begin to sweat. He wonders if he’s been too forward, too earnest, and if he’s scared him away—but what’s new? Then Jean says “Next week,” and offers Mikael his hand to shake, and Trant remembers to breathe again.

“We’ve shaken on it now,” Jean says to Mikael. “No take backs.”

“No take backs,” Mikael agrees, and he shakes Jean’s hand again for good measure.

Jean nods curtly, then squints at something in the distance and points above them. “What kind of cloud is that?”

Both father and son look up. “Cumulonimbus,” they say simultaneously, just as Jean sneaks a hand around Trant’s waist and pecks him on the lips. Trant’s mouth falls open, startled, and he gawps at his colleague, too amazed to respond.

“See you tomorrow,” Jean says, smirking like a cat that’s stolen a chicken dinner. “And see you next week, kidlet.”

Trant watches him walk away, still unable to cobble together a reply. Mikael looks at Jean’s receding back, then bends over Trant’s head and peers into his face, blonde fringe falling over his eyes.

“Daddy,” he says, “do you like Jean?”

“I do, cub,” Trant says. Because why would you lie to a child?

“Can I tell Mummy and Aunty Vita?”

Trant considers this. He’s not certain. “Not yet. It’ll be our secret for now, okay?” He sticks out his little finger.

“Okay.” Mikael links their little fingers. “Our secret.”  
  


Citations 

  * The museum is roughly based off the [Chichu Art Museum](https://benesse-artsite.jp/en/art/chichu.html) on Naoshima, designed by [Tadao Ando](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadao_Ando).
  * The wolf diorama is a reference to Cai Guo-Qiang’s ‘Head On’.
  * Sant-Clare and her garden is a palette-swapped Claude Monet and [his garden](https://fondation-monet.com/en/) at Giverny.




	2. Chapter 2

Jean joins them next week at the park, then the following week at the _Musée d'Histoire Naturelle de Insulinde_ , and the week after that in an old Filippian-era pump room on the South bank of the River Esperance—its mosaics depicting the coronation of Filippe III miraculously untouched by the Revolution. He joins them every week, when work allows. Even the week when both Trant and Mikael are stricken by the flu and they’re shivering and sniffing in bed, unable to hold down anything more substantial than soup.

“Thank you for being here,” Trant tells him, curled next to his son. “I’m sorry you’ve used your day-off on nursing two invalids.”

Jean wrings cool water from a cloth and presses it to Mikael’s forehead. “After Harry, this is nothing.”

They’ve also kissed several more times since the museum: in the backseat of Trant’s motor carriage; under the lazy sweep of the ceiling fan in Jean’s cramped bedsit; and once in a janitor’s cupboard after a particularly stressful press conference, a folding chair jammed under the door knob and their hands down each other’s trousers, Jean panting into Trant’s neck. As he holds Jean after—ignoring the mop handle that’s digging into his back—Trant is certain of his own certainty, and starts thinking about how he’ll tell Jean. He can’t predict how his not-quite colleague will react, but that’s the nature of love, is it not? The baring of the self without expectation.

They collide into Judit as they leave the cupboard. Trant nearly has a heart attack and Jean looks like he wants to crawl back in, but Judit smiles, says, “ _Chapeau_!” and mimes pulling a zip across her lips.

It’s exactly seventeen weeks after Jean’s started joining them that Trant has all the pieces in place. He books a table for three at a nice restaurant—not too fancy, children welcome, and owned by two women who live together in the flat above. Jean meets them at the house, having ditched his blazer and tie and rolled up his sleeves, looking handsome. Mikael runs over to hug his legs, then insists on a piggyback ride on the walk over, and Jean sort-of indulges him by hoisting him onto his broad shoulders like a sack of flour.

Mikael kicks his legs and giggles. “You’re doing it wrong!”

“I’m doing it right,” Jean rasps. “This is how farmers carry piglets.”

"I'm a boy!"

"A boy piglet."

“Especially at dessert,” Trant says tickling Mikael, and his son laughs and squeals.

\---

Dinner is lovely. The restaurant is packed, half of it taken up by a banquet table hosting a clan of rowdy redheads, all decked in pink party hats to celebrate their matriarch’s 90th birthday. One of the owners is charmed by Mikael’s big blue eyes, little sailor suit, and impeccable table manners, and at the end of the meal she invites him back to the kitchen to see how the food is made.

“Are Daddy and Jean coming?” Mikael says, looking between them.

The proprietress shakes her shaved head, silver cat earrings tinkling. “They’re going to talk about boring adult things.” She winks at the two men.

Mikael is unmoved. “Why did your face do that?”

“I didn’t want to tell them about”—she lowers her voice into a stage whisper—“the special dessert station.” She grins as she sees Mikael wavering. “There’s a special fridge _just_ for chocolate.”

The promise of a special chocolate fridge is too much for any child to resist. But Mikael still looks up at his father, silently asking if he can go.

Trant nods. “We’ll be right here, cub.”

Mikael slides off his chair. “If you kidnap me,” he says with utter seriousness, “I will yell and bite you. Jean taught me.” And he follows her into the kitchen.

Trant swirls his glass and looks across the table. “What did you teach him?” he asks, smiling.

“Basic self-defense,” Jean says, pushing steamed carrots around his plate. “Well, not _real_ self-defense. He’s too little. But basically to scream and cry and try to run away if someone does grab him.”

“To make a scene so that there’s a higher chance eyewitnesses see him.”

Jean nods and spears a carrot. “I may have also taught him the body parts that hurt the most when bitten. Or kicked.”

Trant smiles and sips his wine. It’s a good red, well-rounded with hints of blackcurrant and spice. “I’ve been wanting to thank you for taking such good care of him.”

“It’s nothing. Takes a special kind of shithead to be mean to kids.”

“I mean it.” His foot bumps Jean’s under the table. “Mikael’s really taken a shine to you.”

Jean smiles at that. “He’s an easy kid to like.” He twirls his fork once then sets it down, carrot uneaten. “He reminds me there’s still good in the world, you know? I want to protect that. Keep him from how much of a flaming garbage heap everything is, for at least a little longer.” His forefinger scratches the worn wood of the table. “Sounds stupid, I know.”

“Not at all,” Trant says.

Jean looks at him then, jaw working. “I’m bad at talking about this sort of thing. Double homicides and gang executions, sure. But not”—he gestures towards Trant and Mikael’s empty chair—“this. I was trying to talk about it at the museum before that cow barged in.”

A magnificent two-tier cake is wheeled out of the kitchen, ablaze with dozens of pink candles, and the redhead clan breaks out in a birthday song. Jean ignores them, still trying to find the words he wants in Trant’s face.

“I’ve gone back to look at it, you know,” he says, “when a case takes me to the area. Sant-Clare’s ‘Garden at Dawn’. I’ve never had that, somewhere I knew every centimeter of, down to the leaf, and something that would thrive the more I cared for it. I thought I did with the task force.” Jean looks down at his plate. “I was wrong.”

Trant strokes the back of Jean’s ankle. He listens.

“This last winter and the shitfire that happened in Martinaise—they nearly destroyed me. But I didn’t realise until the shitkid went off with Kitsuragi and I had time again. Time that I wasn’t spending worrying about whether he’d finally gone and eaten his own bullets. And I didn’t know what to do.” He reaches for Trant and twines their fingers together. “Until you and Mik came along. So, I wanted—”

A shout pierces the noisy bistro, coming from the kitchen. Trant and Jean leap from the table, chairs screeching against the floor, and they sprint to the back and burst through the swinging doors to find Mikael covered head to toe in chocolate, grinning.

The proprietress looks up at them, frantically trying to clean him with a kitchen towel. “I am so, _so_ sorry.”

Mikael ducks and licks himself, giggling.

“I—I’d finished icing the cake and told him he could lick the bowl,” stammers the equally panicked pâtissier. “He did while I was tempering chocolate, and I looked away for a few moments to find my moulds, and before I knew it he’d dumped it all over himself.”

“It’s all right.” Trant kneels and tries to hold his son still. “Mikael, you are _very lucky_ that chocolate wasn’t hot. You could’ve hurt yourself.”

Jean points at a pile of paper wrappers, dumped on the floor. “Did he eat a _whole tray of bonbons_?”

“Oh no,” Trant whispers.

Mikael refuses to be cleaned, and he squirms out of their grasp and runs onto the restaurant floor, screaming. The other patrons try to help, but Mikael kicks a man in the shins, bites two more, headbutts a waiter in the crotch, and makes his last stand on the banquet table—stomping on the cake and ruining the birthday party—before he’s finally wrangled. Jean clamps him in a bear hug and carries him out the door, sticky and howling. Trant shoves the proprietress a wad of notes and his business card, hurriedly saying that he’ll come back later in the week to settle outstanding damages, and he apologises to everyone on the way out.

Outside, under the white spotlight of a hydrogen street lamp, Jean has set Mikael on the pavement and is speaking into his ear, voice low and soothing. His son wails, still trying to break free, and as he struggles he jerks his head back and smashes Jean’s face. 

Trant snaps. “Enough. Enough!” he barks, grabbing his son before he can run away. “You will _stop_ screaming and stay _still_.” He holds Mikael firmly by the shoulders and spins him around to face Jean, now sitting sprawled on the pavement, clutching his nose. “Look at what you’ve done. Jean’s hurt. Did you know you hurt him?”

Mikael stops, eyes widening.

“Trant, it was an accident,” Jean says, wiping his nose and wincing. The back of his hand comes away with wet red streaks. “Go easy on the kid.”

“No, he needs to learn his actions have consequences. Did you want to hurt Jean, Mikael?”

The boy shakes his head.

“But you _still_ hurt him. His nose is bleeding. You can still hurt people even if you didn’t mean it. Do you understand?”

Mikael nods. The corners of his mouth tremble—he’s about to cry. “‘M sorry,” he whimpers, looking up at his father.

Trant sighs and brushes sticky hair out of his son’s eyes. “It’s not me you need to apologise to, cub.” He holds out his handkerchief.

Mikael takes it and stumbles towards Jean, still hunched over on the pavement. “I’m sorry,” he says, and dabs Jean’s nose.

Jean gently takes the cloth from him. “It’s okay.” He opens his arms for a hug. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Mikael sobs and flings his arms around Jean’s neck.

Jean rocks him, paying no attention to the chocolate that’s being smeared all over his shirt. “It’s okay, Mik. It’s okay.”

\---

Their walk back is subdued. Mikael sniffles, clinging to Jean’s hand, and his not-quite colleague is brooding at the pavement with his brows drawn together, lost in thought. They’re quite a sight—two grown men and a child who look like they’ve clawed their way out of a mudpit, but thankfully there aren’t too many people around to see them.

Streetlights beam circles of light onto asphalt, leading them home. Trant worries. Re-runs the evening’s events. He shouldn’t have lost his temper. Did he push Mikael too far? Does Jean regret joining them? Does Jean regret joining _him_? There’s also the matter of what Jean was about to say and what Trant was planning to tell him, but bringing up either feels wholly inappropriate now.

A breeze blows in, carrying with it smoke from some distant fire. Trant’s transported to a jetty in Martinaise, watching Jean stare at grey foam lapping against wood and the empty space where a boat used to be, then raise his eyes to the speck sailing in the distance and the figure standing on its prow. The smell of salt settles cold in his lungs. Above them, seagulls glide in wide circles and caw like alarms.

“Want a piggyback ride?”

Trant is startled back to the present. It takes him a couple of seconds to realise that Jean’s asking his son.

Mikael’s eyes are still downcast but he nods, and Jean lifts him onto his back.

“Who do you think runs faster?” Jean asks, as Mikael settles in. “Me or your Daddy?”

“Daddy?”

“Your Dad’s got cool stick-fighting moves, but he’s never had to chase the shi—Harry Du Bois down Boogie Street. Bet I could beat him.” He winks at Trant.

“Nuh uh. Daddy runs everyday.”

“So do I. Let’s find out who’s fastest.” Jean turns to him. “Race you back.”

Trant gets into position, bending his knees and moving his weight onto his toes, and stretches one leg behind him. “We’ll test that claim.”

Jean lines up next to him. “Count us down, Mik.” A small smile breaks across his face. “And hold _tight_.”

\---

Trant slaps his front door. “I win!” he shouts, and then he doubles over gasping for air.

“Hm, I guess your Daddy _is_ the fastest,” Jean says, jogging up behind him. He’s barely broken a sweat. “Good race, Trant.”

“Yay, Daddy!” Mikael raises his hand for an Ace’s High—something he’s picked up from Jean. Glee shines in his eyes.

Trant pats it, his chest still heaving. “Thank you. Cub,” he puffs, “Jean was. Quite fast. No?”

“But you were fastest!”

Jean crouches to let Mikael climb off his back. “I’ll beat you next time. I had a handicap today.”

“I’m a boy!” Mikael insists.

“A very sticky one.” Trant unlocks and opens the front door. “Come on. Bath time.”

\---

They sluice the chocolate off Mikael and bundle him into his pajamas, then take turns in the shower while the other tries to keep him from eating his crayons. Mikael has calmed down some but he’s still pumped full of sugar, and they blow through his bedtime like a motor carriage through police tape. He won’t stop asking questions, nearly brings down a bookshelf trying to climb it, and comes back from a sprint around the neighbourhood still vibrating on his toes. After they’ve finally cajoled him into bed, they collapse onto the sofa, too exhausted even to touch.

“Fucking hell,” Jean says, rubbing his face. “I thought the Madre was bad, but Mik on sugar could bring down isolary governments.”

“He’ll be like this for a little while longer, then he’ll crash and sleep for fourteen hours,” Trant says. “I’m about ready to as well.” He tilts his head back onto the sofa and closes his eyes. “Thank you for staying. You could’ve left after the restaurant and I wouldn’t have faulted you.”

“Takes a lot more than your son going apeshit to scare me away.”

“Still. I don't want to take you for granted. Thank you."

The wall clock ticks softly. Jean's quiet, his jaw working.

"Mik's a great kid," he eventually rasps, voice thick with emotion.

“He is.” Trant tips sideways and leans his cheek against Jean's shoulder. “I can only hope I’m good enough for him.”

“What makes you think you’re not?”

“I read the right books, stay up-to-date with the latest research, but all of that goes out the window when faced with the actual work of parenting. Like today.” Trant sighs and thinks about blood trickling from Jean’s nose and Mikael freezing, his face a tiny moon under the white streetlights. “To complicate things further, my life has never been what you’d call stable. I’ve moved too often to build lasting connections, cut all contact with my biological family, and work erratic hours consulting for the RCM.” He opens his eyes. “I want to do right by him. I don’t know if I am.”

Jean rests his head against Trant’s. “Has he been acting out at school?”

“His mother says he’s well-liked. I’m told he stood up to a bully last week, and shared his stickers with another child who didn’t have any.” Trant smiles as he says this, proud.

“Sounds to me like he’s doing great. Not a lot of kids have parents who respect them. Love, sure—” Jean pauses. “Scratch that, my Da never gave a shit about me. But my point is, he’s a good kid because you’re a good dad.”

“I’m not raising him myself. His mother and her partner shoulder a good portion of the work, and I’ve been fortunate to have such exemplary co-parents.”

“Just let me fucking reassure you, Heidelstam.”

That startles a laugh out of Trant, and he smiles at his not-quite colleague scowling down at him. “Consider myself assured,” he says, and presses a kiss to Jean’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

He closes his eyes again, ready to fall asleep. His plan’s been spectacularly derailed, but he wonders if he should just give Jean his present anyway. If he’s certain, why not tell him?

An arm settles across his shoulders, warm and heavy. “We’re gonna fuck our backs up if we fall asleep here.”

“A mattress would definitely be preferable.” Trant heaves himself up, but places a hand on Jean’s chest when he tries to follow. “Could you give me a moment?”

“Checking to see if he’s actually sleeping?”

“Just fetching something.”

When he flops back down on the sofa, he places a small padded envelope on Jean’s lap.

Jean taps the stamps adorned with etchings of Irene the Navigator. “International mail. This came a long way.”

“I drew on some contacts in Sur-La-Clef. They helped me to track down what I'd requested—apparently they are surprisingly rare and difficult to find. Collector’s items.”

“You’re telling me nothing about what’s inside.”

Trant nudges Jean’s knee with his own. “You’ll have to open it.”

The envelope is ripped open and Jean tips out a set of postcards. His fingertips graze a lily petal formed by the flick of three brushstrokes, two mud-grey and one arcing, luminescent white.

“Oh,” Jean whispers. He lays the postcards out on the coffee table and then he’s lost in them—the bobbing lilies, the bridge and its spindly posts, the duckweed fringing lilypads like lace, the stream babbling clear over rocks, and the pale ghost of the rising sun rippling in water.

Trant watches him relive the garden. It’s a gift.

After the span of several breaths, Jean raises his head. His eyes are wet but he returns Trant’s smile, touches his thigh and leans in to kiss him. Soft. Sweet. Trant cups Jean’s cheek, feeling the bristles of his beard, and is about to deepen the kiss when he hears hinges squeak behind him.

“Please go back to bed,” he says.

The hinges squeak again as the door opens wider. “Why did you put your mouths together?” Mikael asks in a loud voice. He doesn’t sound sleepy at all.

“Because I like Jean very much,” Trant says without thinking. He stiffens—this wasn’t how he’d planned to say it, but since when has his life adhered to any sort of plan? And now Jean is just _looking_ at him like how he looked at the postcards, with his full attention, undivided and unwavering.

“Does he like _you_?” Mikael says, subtle as a crowbar.

Jean bites his lips together, trying to keep a straight face. “I like your daddy very much, too.”

“If I like someone, should I put my mouth on their mouth?”

“Only if you ask and they say yes,” Trant says. “But you shouldn’t do this with anyone until you’re older.”

“When I’m seven?”

“Much older.”

“Ten?”

“Even older than that.”

Mikael is quiet as he contemplates the range of numbers higher than ten. “But I’ll be so old. I’ll be a grandpa.”

“I’m a grandpa,” Jean says. “So’s your dad. It’s not so bad.”

The boy nods, accepting this explanation. “Can I tell Mummy and Aunty Vita you like each other?”

“We’ll need to get permission from Jean first,” Trant says, and he glances at his not-quite colleague. “He means his mother—my ex—and her partner. You don’t have to if you’re not comfortable with it.”

In answer, Jean squeezes his thigh. “Go ahead and tell them, kidlet.”

“Okay. I’m going to bed now.” The hinges squeak again. “Goodnight!” Mikael shouts through the closed door, and his footsteps pad away, back to his room.

Jean chuckles and shakes his head. “You really broke the mould when you made that one.”

“Good. I love him, but I can’t handle a second.”

“What a coincidence.” Jean tilts Trant’s chin up. “That’s also how I feel about you.”

Trant feels his cheeks grow hot.

Jean smirks. “I mean it. You’re one-of-a-kind.” And he closes the gap between their lips.

“Thank you,” Trant blurts after their kiss. “I love you too.”

Jean’s grin is glorious, the sun cresting the horizon, turning everything to gold. “I should thank _you_.”

“What for?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you.” The postcards glimmer. Jean cups Trant’s face, thumbs stroking the fine lines that bracket either side of his mouth. “Thank you for letting me into your garden.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapeau! -- Literally translated: Hat. Used here it means 'hats off!"

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, toss me a kudos! Or post your favourite work of art in the comments.


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